Oh, but she hated to do it.
They would be miserable from the side effects. It was not a wonderful choice.
However, the crowd around her was savage with its intense ‘mob mentality’ as hordes of guys began punching anything that moved around them. The girls who had turned on her found themselves bouncing off an invisible wall so hard that for a moment they were stunned.
This was so not good, because those girls were getting up and had d
angerous looks on their faces. She didn’t want to draw any attention to herself and her friends and people bouncing off a shield would do just that.
Barbara and Sally had stopped crying and were frozen in place.
She turned them to see if she could lead them out another way and get them as far from the brawl as she could.
Frankie had what she called a ‘girlie moment’ and wanted to cry.
And then, glowing, superior, moving athletically, easily, unconcerned about the people who he sent flying out of his way on either side of him, was Graely.
Everything around him went into fade out.
All noise seized to exist. Fighting and shoving were nothing anymore.
She knew Graely would make it all work out.
He was everywhere at once.
He parted the crowd between them like he was a bulldozer that no one could withstand.
He rarely smiled and while she couldn’t see his eyes beneath the black hooded cloak he wore, she saw his lips part and curve as though to give her reassurance, to tell her she and her friends had nothing to fear. In a moment, he would be at her side.
Beneath the open black cloak he wore, she saw his hard naked muscular tattooed chest. He wore jeans and silver tipped boots and a part of her just wanted to sink into his arms and whisper his name.
All at once he was there, scooping her under one arm and leading her away. She stopped him and cried out, “My friends—Graely, I can’t leave them.”
He gave her a look and murmured with that delicious old world accent of his, “Of course you can’t, ‘tis why you are still here, isn’t it?” He simply leaned over with one arm and took hold of her two friends as he made another clear path through the crowd and led them into the parking lot.
No one approached them. No one did more than glance his way and move out of it.
At her friends’ car, he stopped to admonish with a finger, “I don’t like that you got caught in such a situation.”
“Not my fault,” she said softly and looked into those dark brightly lit eyes.
“You drive,” he said and took Barbara’s keys out of her fingers and handed them to her. Barbara’s mouth was wide open but neither she nor Sally were speaking, they just continued to stare.
“Take them home, Frankie, and then go straight home yourself,” Graely added.
“Aye, aye,” she answered on a half smile. “Thank you, Graely.”
She got into the driver’s seat and as she pulled away she saw him in her mirror. He stood watching them drive off and then he was gone.
She dropped off Sally and then left Barbara at her house with her car keys. Both had wanted to know who Graely was and she had waved it off, saying an old friend.
Barbara lived only a block away and she shifted home from there, and went straight to her garden and called his name, “Graely? Graely, I know you are nearby. I know.”
He shifted in and she reached up and removed his hood and smiled at him, “Thank you, again. You are always there when I need you.”
“You didn’t really need me, Frankie. You could have shifted off anytime you wanted,” he answered on a dark frown.
“No, I couldn’t leave my friends and I didn’t want to shift them out until it was a last resort. If I had done that I would have had to use a memory spell on them and you know memory spells could have left them dazed and unwell for weeks. I couldn’t do that if there was another way.”